Favorite System for Harry Potter

With the second Fantastic Beasts movie on the horizon, my family is starting to go nuts for Harry Potter again. I'm sure we're not alone.

If you were to run a Harry Potter game, what system would you use, and why? Are there any rules changes you know you'd make?

I'm asking out of curiosity and because I like rules systems and tinkering with them. Because I'm playing in a MnM 3e game, currently, I've got how I'd use that system for it. I think it'd work fairly well.

I've thought about it and my best idea has involved Fate, or some other undefined universal system. Spell lists could simply be included as a custom Aspect, so casting would be rolling an Approach. The effects are narrative based or creating new aspects.

There is actually a game running on this site that uses 5e rules. Someone has converted a lot of HP stuff into D&D rules, I'm not sure how well it will play out. The levels are the same as "years" in Hogwarts. Not sure how that will play out in the long term campaign sense though.

For spells they took an interesring approach. Since evertone is a wizard, each spell is tied to one stat: Int, Wis, or Cha. You have to roll and beat a DC to get certain effects. The base DC is 5 on low level(first year) spells so your chances of oitright failure is very low, but you might not get the full power that you desire. We aren't that far into it so I can't give my full opinion of the rules but it could get interesting.

The Genesys system does Harry Potter pretty well. The magic system is very fluid and doesn't rely on pre-made spell lists.

Cortex Plus Dramatic (aka the Smallville rpg, aka Cortex Prime) or a very similar hack thereof is an excellent system to do the Wizarding World with, if you want something that is more narrative focused than something like MnM or D&D, but yet is a little more crunchy than Fate, and more accessible (no custom dice, no need to create 90% of the in-game mechanical content) than Genesys.

You look at Harry Potter and magic isn't really handled like a traditional RPG handles magic right? There's certainly no limit to the amount you can cast, and there really isnt even any chance of spell failure, once you've learned a spell (so long as you don't have a broken wand or something). That's why I like a system like Cortex that handles magic like the fiction does: as a plot device. Cortex would handle it best through its metacurrency literally called Plot Points.

You want to cast a spell, you spend a Plot Point, which generally either escalates the tension in the game (by giving the GM more dice/mechanical power, or by giving the GM the ability to change certain things about the narrative), or it costs the player some sort of complication.

I ran a one shot probably a couple years ago now for my wife and a couple of her friends using a C+ hack set in "the Salem Girls and Boys Academy for Witchcraft" (created our own slice of the Wizarding World).

Players got an extra or upgraded die if they made up a creative or funny wand-motion or incantation... it was awesome.

That sounds like fun. I'm a big fan of Smallville/Cortex Plus Dramatic. I think I'd probably handle the magic a little differently, to give it a little mechanical umph, but I don't know how, at this point. It's been awhile since I've done anything with Cortex Plus.

My first pass at a Wizarding World hack was actually based off of the "Heroic" model, and so did have that mechanical umph. I could summarize what I did pretty easily if you'd be interested?

May even have a PDF of the character sheet somewhere...

This reddit discussion offers some interesting options.

Yes, emsquared, I'd love to take a look at it!

Cool, if you're somewhat familiar with Cortex Plus hopefully this will make sense.

I couldn't find the character sheet, but this is what I could remember.

[number] = that "value" of dice (6 = 1D6, 8 = 1D8, so on...)

GD = Guaranteed Die
SD = Situational Die

GD 1 - Affiliations (assign 6, 8, 10)
>Ally
>Rival
>Stranger

GD 2 - Distinctions (4+PP OR 8)
>Distinction 1 - Suggestion, House (hopefully self-explanatory)
>Distinction 2 - Suggestion, Background (examples; Mud Blood, Wealthy Family, Uncontrollable Divinations)
>Distinction 3 - Suggestion, Personal (examples; Teachers Pet, Natural Athlete, The Girl of Destiny)

SD 1 - Specialties (assign 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, the rest are 4s)
>Potions
>Arcane Lore
>Athletics
>Persuade
>Fantastic Flora & Fauna
>Flight
>Magical Artefacts
>Mischief
>Muggle Studies
>Test Taking

SD 2 - Powersets (3 @ 6, 6, 6 OR 2 @ 8, 8 OR 1 @ 10)
>Defense Against the Dark Arts
>Charms
>Transfiguration

Or you could trade one of the above to start with something like Animagus, and later you can get Apparition or Legillimancy, etc.

SD 3 - Signature Assets (2 @ 6, 6 OR 1 @ 8)
Suggestion 1 - Familiar
Suggestion 2 - Faculty Member
Suggestion 3 - Secret Location
Suggestion 4 - Arcane Trinket

SD 4 - Wand-work and Casting (4 OR 6 OR 8 OR Step Up Effect Die, depending on how good/funny, etc. it was)

Does that all make sense to you, Shark?

That's an interesting setup. The Affiliations are throwing me for a loop. That may be a definition thing. Everything else makes sense, more or less. I'm sure I'd get the feel for it sitting down to make a character or play the game.

Yea, obviously a custom set of Affiliations.

Your "Ally" die would apply whenever you are "targeting" an ally, or friend (or yourself), with your Action, or if your Action would benefit/help an Ally's situation (i.e. if a friend is the reason you're doing the Action).

Your "Rival" die would apply whenever you are targeting a rival, or enemy, or if your Action somehow otherwise involves a rival, possibly even if a rival is observing an Action in which you both have a stake.

Your "Stranger" die would apply for anything else; people who are neither your friend or enemy (a hall monitor just doing their job, when you're trying to sneak by them, for example), wild animals, static/inanimate object challenges, etc.

That makes a lot of sense.

I just realized I left Dark Arts off of the Powersets list, but that might be because I don't think I allowed that to be taken until a Student was Second Year...